Adopting Electronic Health Records Would Benefit Physician’s Bottom Line
. . . But Will They Do It? Can They Do It?
According to Bill Gilbert of AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions in their article Physician, Heal Thy Practice published in “Health Information Management,” most physician offices are still in the stone age when it comes to using health information technology to manage their office and billing workflow:
[they] still take notes with pens and clipboards, double-enter patient information on computers installed years or even decades ago, collaborate via inter-office faxes, and so on.
A 2009 survey by the Commonwealth Fund agrees with Gilbert’s assessment. The survey found that the U.S. healthcare industry has an electronic health record adoption rate of only 28%, well below that of five other countries and only inching past that of Canada.
Despite a Rand study that demonstrated both cost savings and improvement in health care quality when health information technology is properly implemented, few physicians are moving forward to take advantage of modern electronic medical billing, electronic health records, and other health information technologies. Why?
One reason, posits Gilbert is rapidly rising health care costs:
. . . spiraling health care costs put intensive downward pressure on physicians’ revenue while, at the same time, put upward pressure on their costs. The result: another “catch 22″ in the health care crisis.
Specifically, according to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), an electronic health record system (EHR) can cost upwards of $500,000 to install. Worse, salary and training EHR operators will on average cost more than an existing labor force that manages old fashion paper records. Add on ongoing IT maintenance costs and its little wonder that all but the largest health organizations can even think about implementing such systems.
The Federal Government’s Carrot and Stick Approach | Electronic Medical Billing & EHR — or Else.
According to the St. Louis Business Journal (EHR providers continue to wait on stimulus boost), the federal government has acknowledged the high adaption costs to doctors. The government has introduced both incentives and penalties in last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to encourage doctors to purchase electronic medical billing software to take advantage of new electronic health records formats that can easily be shared across platform independent, network-connected, enterprise-wide, information systems. Legislators included $36 billion in subsidies to help doctors purchase these new health information systems. These subsidies and incentives will slowly fade out over five years – that’s how long doctors have to take advantage of them before the government begins to penalize physicians who fail to adopt electronic medical billing software and electronic health records.
Will the carrot and stick approach work? Only time will tell, and now the clock is ticking . . .
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